Doctor Who and the Dangers of Smoking
by GenvieveWoolf
Summary: Rose has a cigarette. The Doctor has a conniption. Lists many good reasons why you should not start, or why you should quit if you have started. Just a cute one-shot. Don't read if you're planning to snipe.


_I know it's been a long time and I ought to be working on my chaptered fics, but this was an emergency. :p I wrote this for a friend because she smokes and I want to give her reason to quit. We both love David Tennant as Doctor Who, so I thought this would be a fun way to discourse on it. :3 Hope it gives some smokers reason not to._

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><p>DOCTOR WHO AND THE DANGERS OF SMOKING<em><br>_

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><p>Rose and the Doctor had just come home between voyages into the unknown so Rose could visit family and friends. Rose introduced the Doctor to her best friend, Cherie. They visited a few shops together and paused on a bridge to look down at the water.<p>

"He's gorgeous," Cherie told Rose confidentially, while the Doctor was on the opposite side of the bridge, tossing bread crumbs to some ducks. "Where'd you meet him? I want one."

Rose laughed. "There's only one, I'm afraid. No one like him."

Cherie took out her cigarettes and pulled one out of the pack. "Want a fag?" she offered Rose.

"Ok," Rose agreed, taking a cigarette and holding it out for Cherie to light. She took a short drag and exhaled the smoke. "Mm, it's been a while."

"Don't they have them wherever it is you've been traveling?"

Before she could answer, the Doctor strode over to them, an incredulous look on his face.

"Just what do you think you're doing?"

"Just having a smoke," Rose retorted. "You want one?"

"I wouldn't give one to a duck I didn't like."

Cherie sighed. "Oh, no. He's one of those health nutters. Now I understand why he wasn't taken…"

"Does your mother know you smoke?" the Doctor persisted.

Rose shrugged. "I don't smoke. I just have one once in a blue moon."

"That's how it starts."

"He sounds like my dad," Cherie moaned.

"You go over there and have a time-out," the Doctor snapped at Cherie. "Wait, let me have the pack. Shoo."

Cherie handed the cigarettes over with wide eyes and wandered down the length of the bridge, looking back at them from time to time.

"What's wrong with you?" Rose asked. "Cherie's my best mate…"

"Well you're mine, and I won't have you smoking." The Doctor looked away suddenly, as if he'd said more than he meant to.

Rose smiled a little. "All right, Mr. Health Inspector—give me one good reason. And don't say cancer. Please, don't say cancer. Everyone says that."

"I'll give you TEN good reasons."

"Oh, really? Ten reasons why I shouldn't smoke."

"That's right. If I can do it, you buy me chips."

"You're on. But if you can't come up with ten non-repetitive reasons that don't include cancer, you've got to take me and Cherie to the grand opening of the Opera in Paris."

The Doctor hesitated only a moment. "That's a dreadful wager, but I'm going to take it. You know why, Missy? Because I'm going to win."

Rose raised her eyebrows. "Ok. So, do it."

"Reason one: money."

"What?"

"Let's get the shallow reason out of the way first—money. D'you realize how much these things cost? You pay what—five pound for twenty?"

"They're not always that much…"

"On average. Let's say you smoke just one pack each month. That's sixty pound you're putting down the gutter per annum. "

"Sixty pounds… that's nothing…"

"And if you smoke a pack every week—" the Doctor calculated in his head. "—great Scott, that's two hundred-sixty pounds per year. And we haven't even brought up how your insurance rates are affected by it. Think what you could do with all that money instead. You could take your mate Cherie to the Opera in Paris."

Rose smirked. "I'm not sure it would cover that. But all right. That's one good reason. Reason two?"

The Doctor held up the cigarette pack. "Right here on the package."

"I said no cancer."

"It doesn't say 'cancer.' Look."

Rose observed the large words, _Smoking kills._ "Well, it means cancer."

"Oh, no it doesn't," the Doctor contradicted. He flipped the pack over and pointed to the back. "'Smoking may reduce the blood flow and cause impotence.' I dunno about you, but I know some people don't like not being able to have children if they want to."

"That's rare."

"How rare?" he challenged her. "How d'you know that? You're just saying that to argue, but you've done no research. Did your mum smoke when she was pregnant with you? That would explain a lot, but I'm guessing: No, she did not. Because she loved you."

Rose folded her arms. "Now you're gettin' preachy."

"Money and impotence; that's two. Number three follows naturally—I won't have you smoking because even if you escape destitution and impotence you might someday have children, and the toxins in your blood could cause them to be born with birth defects. They might even be addicted before they're born."

"That is _really_ rare…"

"Ah ah ah," the Doctor said, holding up a finger. "No arguments now; the burden of proof is not on my side. It's a good reason, and that's all that's required. Money, impotence, children, addiction. Have you seen what addiction does to a person?"

"I'm not addicted."

"And I won't have you becoming addicted." He took the half-burnt cigarette out of Rose's hand and dropped it to the curb where he crushed it under his hightop.

"Oi!" Cherie shouted from the other end of the bridge.

"Hush, you. Anyway, just now, you must have felt something familiar about it—it seemed nice. You felt alert and relaxed, yeah?"

"Well… ok, sure."

"That's the beginning. When you first try smoking, it's nasty and chokes you. But now there's something sort of pleasant about it, right?"

"It's an acquired taste."

"That's only part of it—it's the beginnings of addiction. And addictions don't go away in time; they get worse. After a while you have to smoke so much more at a time and more often. Right about the time you can't afford them anymore is right when you start to _need_ them desperately. You find yourself doing things you never would have done before just to keep that craving at bay."

The Doctor's voice was low and menacing. Rose didn't know whether to be frightened or to laugh.

The Doctor straightened up. "Money, impotence, children, addiction, heart disease."

"Only fat people get heart disease."

"That's a callous thing to say—my mother died of heart disease!"

Rose was devastated. "Did she really? I'm sorry."

"No, not really, but what if she had? You'd feel horrible."

Rose hit him.

"Ow. Anyway, smoking clogs up your arteries. In time it causes heart attacks and strokes. Even when they're not fatal they generally damage you permanently. And you don't have to be obese to have one."

"Fine. Heart attacks. Good reason."

"Let's go back to the shallow reasons. Number six: bad breath."

"Oh, come off it."

"It doesn't generally bother a smoker to smell smoke on someone else's breath—they're used to it. After a while they're not even able to notice it unless it's very strong. But to people who don't smoke…like myself," he emphasized, "it's a ghastly and unattractive stench."

"You've never tried it, have you?"

"Actually, yes. I used to smoke a pipe, long ago. It was a very bad habit I managed to break only through great perseverance. Don't think I don't know how difficult it is. Especially for a human who has only some eighty-odd years to quit in. It's not just your breath either—your hair and skin can start to smell of smoke after a while, and it makes all your clothes and belongings reek, too."

Rose thought for a moment. "I guess if it bothers you that much, we can count bad breath. What else?"

"Money, impotence, children, addiction, heart disease, bad breath, deterioration of physical attraction."

"What you mean?"

"You know those nutters who go lie out in the sun all the time? They get their skin nice and brown, but they get all these blemishes and wrinkles long before their time. Smoking does the same—makes people all wrinkly like prunes before the usual age. It also stains their teeth and gives them low, scratchy voices. Now, obviously I can't get too attached to my own looks, since they're bound to make a complete change eventually, but if I were human, I'd probably care a bit more."

Rose bit her lip. "Hmm… I don't think one or two smokes in a year will do that…"

"That's just how it starts, remember?"

"Fine. Looks. What else?"

The Doctor counted on his fingers. "Money, impotence, children, addiction, heart disease, bad breath, looks, fire. Do you know how many neglected cigarettes cause people to die in house fires each year?"

"How many?"

"This being the twenty-first century, it's well over four hundred in the UK each year—that's not how many fires were _started_ by cigarettes—that number's a lot higher. This is _people dying,_ Rose."

Rose looked at the ground. "That's careless people, though."

"I don't care how careful you think you are—you leave a lit fag lying around my Tardis, so help me, I will maroon you on some tiny planet with only enough oxygen for one and edible moss to live on. Understand?"

He looked serious, and Rose was sufficiently frightened. "Kay… fire's another good reason."

"Money, impotence, children, addiction, heart disease, bad breath, looks, fire, toxins. Tar and carbon monoxide, in particular. Tar coats your lungs and burns the cilia that normally keep toxins out. In other words, your immune system gets severely handicapped. Carbon monoxide builds up in your bloodstream and makes it unable to carry as much oxygen. Smokers can never reach their full potential as athletes because their blood can't keep up muscular performance. Their stamina is severely handicapped. I hate to think how many times you'd have fallen behind and gotten eaten or exterminated by something-or-other if you were a heavy smoker."

Rose leaned on the bridge railing. She now had no doubt that she would lose the bet. "What's the tenth reason?" she asked quietly.

The Doctor didn't have to think about it. "Second-hand smoke. I've no desire for you to reawaken my own addiction. Besides that, there are dozens of innocent people around whom you're poisoning by making them breathe what you've already passed through your lungs. They're taking in trace amounts of tar and CO-one and nicotine… Men, women, children, pets—Time Lords are harmed by it, too. And the toxins put in the air by cigarettes poison the environment. You can say it's your choice, but what about everyone around you? Did you give them a choice?"

Rose didn't know what to say. She'd never dreamed she could hurt her best friend just by lighting one cigarette. "I'm sorry," she said meekly.

He put an arm around her. "I'll give you a bonus reason," he said. "Number eleven: You're my Rose. If anything happened to you… I'd be lost."

She turned toward him and wrapped both arms around the Doctor. The tears on her face seeped into his trench coat. "I am sorry," she repeated. "I'll never do it again."

The Doctor smiled and leaned his head against hers. "There's a good girl," he said, sounding like an actual doctor of medicine with a patient. "Now, how about we go get some chips? Tell you what—we can see the Opera, too, if you like. Only, please don't cry anymore."

"Well, there's a bargain," Rose laughed. "Cherie," she called, "toss these in the bin and come on—we're going to have a treat."

The Doctor picked up the extinguished cigarette butt and dropped it into a trash can at the end of the bridge.

"Don't tell me he's also one of those pollution nutters that wants to save the world," Cherie said, rolling her eyes.

"I dunno… but that is what he's best at," Rose answered with a knowing smile.

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><p><em>El Fin. :) Hope you enjoyed it. Comments welcome, but please, no smoke-I mean no flames. Heh.<em>


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